Last week, I dropped my iPhone on the floor of Don Quijote restaurant and was shocked when its screen cracked. It could have fallen against the steel legs of the table. I can’t be sure. The annoying thing was I had a tempered glass on and it didn’t help at all.
This was a first time for me. I had never ever had a phone crack before, despite throwing one and having it break a cookie jar, or having one fall off my double bunk bed and having the parts fly all over the room, only to be put together, good as new.
True, those were Nokia phones and you know how strong they are, but my iPhone 3gs and 4s also never broke even though I dropped them several times too.
Damn it, iPhone 6.
I called Singtel to ask if this was covered by warranty, to which they said no.
So the next step was to search for repair shops, or to be more specific, to search for the cheapest reliable repair shop of them all.
The first one I found was in Sim Lim Square, which is the shadiest shopping destination in Singapore. It’s notorious for scammers, the most recent incident of which involved a Vietnamese tourist who was scammed out of so much money that he knelt and cried while the shop owner just laughed at him.
Still, I called to ask for a quote to replace a screen and they said it would cost S$230. That’s ironically around the same amount I paid for the phone itself when I got it a few months ago. Ugh.
I found another shop named Break Fix Now, this time located in Bugis, and texted to ask the same thing, and was told it would cost S$180. Well that’s cheaper, not to mention a lot less shadier, so I decided to go there.
I dropped (not literally) my phone at their shop and was asked to pick it up after an hour. So I went shopping at the stalls all around the area and got shocked at how quickly the time flew by, and then when I went back to pick up my phone, it was good as new, like nothing had changed.
Well nothing except that I was S$180 poorer.
One hundred eighty dollars.
Do you know what else I could have bought with that amount?
18 Things You Can Buy with the Price of an iPhone Screen
1) A pair of real gold earrings with teeny tiny real diamonds
2) A Longchamp bag (if bought at the airport) or 10 Korean bags from a Bugis stall
3) 3 pairs of sandals from Pretty Fit
4) 18 cab rides to work
5) 1 night’s stay in a hotel (using Groupon)
6) 13 movie tickets
7) 30 cups of Starbucks coffee
8) 45 food court lunches
9) A ticket to a concert or play or event like Cavalia with great seats up front, or a couple of tickets for crappy ones at the back
10) Round trip airfare seat sale tickets to the Philippines
11) 4 dresses from Forever 21 or a long gown from New Look
12) Buffet dinner for 3 at a high quality restaurant or hotel
13) A discounted Seiko or Fossil watch
14) A refurbished iphone 4s or some other “old” smartphone
15) A month’s gym membership fee at Fitness First
16) 140 songs on Itunes
17) 6 tubes of Mac lipstick or bottles of Bourjois foundation
18) 50 shares of BDO stock from the Philippine stock exchange
But you know what they say… It’s no use crying over spilled phones.
What do you mean that’s not the saying?
UPDATE: Apparently I got it cheap. A friend told me that if you use Singtel’s Apple warranty, you get charged around S$548. Now imagine what you can buy with that!
Break Fix Now
Bugis Street – 62 Queen Street, Little Red Dot Building #ABFL 19 (GROUND FLOOR)
Singapore 188541
Operating Hours: 11am – 10pm daily
Tel: 6337 2739 / SMS 9729 2739 (Jason)